Auxetic materials are materials that have a negative or effectively negative Poisson's ratio. In contrast to most conventional materials, auxetic materials possess the property that under a tensile load the material expands perpendicularly to the axis along which the tensile load is applied. In other words, auxetic materials expand as they are stretched. Conversely, materials are also auxetic if a compressive load applied along an axis results in a reduction in the dimension of the material along an axis perpendicular to the axis along which the compressive load is applied. Most materials exhibit a positive Poisson's ratio, this ratio being defined by the ratio of the contractile transverse strain relative to the tensile longitudinal strain. Prior art auxetic materials can essentially be divided into two categories. One category comprises honeycomb like polymeric materials, and the other category comprises materials formed by particles linked by fibrils, such as materials described in the International Publication WO 00/53830. However, both of these categories of auxetic materials have significant drawbacks preventing commercialisation on an industrial scale. In particular, there are problems in producing such auxetic materials reliably and cost-effectively using techniques which are suitable for commercialisation. Additionally, the structural characteristics of these prior art auxetic materials made them unsuitable for numerous applications. The inventor of the present application has developed a new category of auxetic materials which are described in a co-pending application. The present application relates to new and useful methods of using such auxetic materials.